


Words

by SophiaCatherine



Series: Neurodivergent DCTV [3]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Autistic Character, Autistic Mick Rory, Disabled Character, Gen, reaction fic, s3e11 Here I Go Again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-23
Updated: 2018-02-23
Packaged: 2019-03-23 00:39:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13776012
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SophiaCatherine/pseuds/SophiaCatherine
Summary: It wasn’t like he ever needed to say much, anyway.Mick Rory writes.





	Words

Click.

He types slowly, at first. Letter by gruelling letter. 

No one interrupts him. 

There’s no  _I’m sure your knowledge of temporal mechanics is encyclopedic, Mr Rory._ There’s no  _Mick, if you don’t calm down and start following the plan we’re going to have a problem._  No _Just one word out of you and I’ll._

No one rushes him, pushes him -  _I know we’re on a time ship, Mick, but we don’t have all day._

No one yells if what he  _says_  isn’t what he  _meant_.

Click. 

Sometimes he stares at a word on the page, the familiar dull  _wrong_  rattling around inside him. Then, shaky at first but stronger with practice, he picks up a pen and crosses it out. 

Click. Click.

* * *

 

It wasn’t like he ever needed to say much, anyway. He could share a glance with Snart across a crowdedcity block and they’d move in sync. Target acquired. Heat gun raised.  _Click_.

He had found himself doing a lot of thinking, after Leo left. 

“Gideon,” he’d said decisively one day, sprawled out in the easy chair in his room, peeling the label off his beer bottle.

“Yes, Mr Rory?” 

“Is there a –” He paused, made a finger-waving gesture with one hand in empty air. “Typewriter. Is there a typewriter on the ship?”

“No, Mr Rory.”

“Oh.” Well, so much for that.

A moment later, “Would you like me to fabricate one for you?”

He took a silent swig from his beer.

“Perhaps you’d prefer a computer? I have fabrication patterns for a number of models from–”

“No,” he cut her off. “Typewriter’s good. That’d be - good.”

_You were right to get me to learn every part and circuit of this thing._

Mechanical under his hands, a thing he could grasp.

Click.

He rigged the case - electric bait, digital lock so good even Snart would have struggled to open it. 

“This may be a  _little_  excessive, Mr Rory,” Gideon said when he added the bear trap. She sounded amused. Like she was interested.

He shrugged. “Don’t need the damn heroes poking their noses in where they got no business. This is–” He paused. “My thing.” 

A beat. “In that case, may I suggest a final security measure?”

He approved of the purple paint.

* * *

 

He burned his first two drafts. The gun tight in his furious grasp, blasting hot and raw until he couldn’t hold it anymore. Words turned to ash, blown away like the  _nothing_  they were.

Then he trudged back to the ship, and sat down at the desk.

Click.

* * *

 

Shielded between two jagged door panels, he growls at New Girl. 

She doesn’t laugh at him. She says it’s  _good._

He drifts back into his room, and just sits at the desk for a while.

The words don’t really come any easier, in here, than out there. The white space stares back at him expectantly, and maybe he doesn’t have anything to  _say_. 

But in here, at least, he can breathe between the words.

His hands falter over the keys. But only for a moment. 

Click. Click. Click.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by an ask on tumblr. stungunmilly2 said (of 'Here I Go Again'): _Monday's episode was so good. One of the things I took away from it is that Mick Rory does that autistic thing where written communication is easier, while verbal communication is "oh god fuck no." Big mood, right there._ (Me: also mood.)
> 
> On tumblr [here](https://sophiainspace.tumblr.com/)


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